Feeling better: doing too much

I finally started feeling better last week. My 15 year old niece came over Tuesday and helped me clean the living room  -- big job, our living room is 16' by 20'.  She dusted everything.  I sent her up into the attic to find some empty boxes to put books in, and she boxed up a bunch of my old novels and put them in the attic.  We also took apart a small shelving unit that the books had been on and took that up to the attic, too!  Dummy me --- I wound up going into the attic with her 3 or 4 times.  My thighs and butt were sore Wednesday from going up and down the attic steps.  That was a major work out for me.  My niece offered to stay all day and do more housework, but I didn't want to wear her out.
The bush cherries ripened and Tim picked a bunch of them.  We made cherry jelly and froze some cherries.  I made a cherry pie, crust and all from scratch.  Tim has a tremendous amount of self control, but he said that the cherry pie was so good that it took all he had not to eat the whole thing at one sitting!  I did good.  I also made some white beans with bacon fried and crumbled in the beans, cornbread, ripe tomato relish, and more fried green tomatoes.  I found out that Lizzie and Amos (2of our dogs) love fried green tomatoes --- isn't that strange???  Now, they can have a bite or two, but the humans are getting the most of the fried green tomatoes.  Our green beans are also coming in ----- I canned 7 quarts of them and there's more than enough left over to fix with supper tonight.  (Tim wasn't in the house when I was ready to can the green beans, so canning green beans meant that I had to make another trip up into the attic to get my big pressure cooker-canner!)  Tonight's fare:  green beans with potatoes, yeast rolls, and barbequed pork ribblets .... yum.
I learned Friday that my aunt's (by marriage -- mu uncle's wife) mother passed away and the funeral and visitation was Saturday.  My dad wanted to go to the funeral, and so did I, so we went together --- a 92 mile drive, each way.  My dad wanted to drive, but he had no idea where we were going and he refuses to use a map.  So, I rode shotgun with my computer printout map and my Kentucky Gazetteer.  My dad used to argue with me on directions and get us lost, but after a few trips though downtown Nashville, TN and Louisville, KY he finally figured out that I am extremely good at reading maps.  Good thing I took the Gazetteer --- my dad wanted to take the "scenic" route home.  He'll be 71 in a couple of weeks, but when he was in his 20's, he had hauled gravel and cut timber in the area around where we went.  He wanted to drive through some places and see if any of his familiar haunts were still there.  Nope.  Things change a lot in 50 years.  When I was a teenager,  I went to that area a lot in the summers with my aunt and uncle and stayed in my aunt's parents cabin on the lake, and things have changed a lot since then! 
There weren't many people at the funeral that I knew, but I did get to see two of my cousins: one that I hadn't seen since Christmas, and another cousin who lives in California that I hadn't seen in 4 years.  The California cousin is only 3 1/2 years older than my daughter, so I gave him my daughter's phone # and he wound up spending the night at her house.  They had a good reunion-- they were close before the cousin moved to CA.  I also got to see my cousins' cousins (my aunt's nieces and grandchildren of the lady who passed away): childhood friends whom I hadn't seen in over 13 years.  My uncle would bring them out to our family farm when we were children. We reminisced about their visits out to our farm and my visits to their grandparents cabin on the lake.  One of my aunt's nieces is only 6 days older than me.  She had to tell her husband about all of the things we did and all of the things I put her up to when she visited the farm -- things that only farm girls can do.  By the time she was through telling her husband all of the "stories", I told her husband that if she had any habits of which he did not approve, to blame me for them and not her!  You see, I am the oldest grandchild by far, so I was spoiled rotten.  We were dirt poor, so I didn't get any fancy toys, but I had free access to every thing on the farm.  My grandfather and my uncle would let me do anything I wanted, as long as they didn't think I would get killed doing it.  So, this niece and I had lots of fun wandering through hundreds of acres of woods, riding horses and mules, and playing in the creeks and the ponds.  It was a big adventure for her --- I taught her how to smoke grapevines like cigars.  She remembered what my uncle told us when her brought her to the farm:  "I know you are going to do whatever you want to do, but don't get caught doing it.  If you do get caught, don't come running to me for help!"  I miss those days! 
This visitation/funeral was more of a happy reunion than a mourning.  The lady who died was a 92-year old Christian, and her family knew that they had been blessed.  There was much laughter and very few tears.  That's how it should be, in my book.
When we went past a Cracker Barrel billboard on the way home, my dad decided he wanted to stop there and eat (Serce, maybe great minds do think alike!).  Now, that billboard was a long way from Cracker Barrel, so I  my dad kept asking me, "How much farther to Cracker Barrel?"  When we finally got to Cracker Barrel, I ordered fried catfish, ranch fries, and fried apples.  Delicious!  I ate every bite.  When I finally got home, I still had to fix supper for Tim.  We had 4 hamburgers left over from Vacation Bible School Thursday, so I fried some potatoes and made some baked beans to go with the burgers.  I was still too full from Cracker Barrel to eat more than a few bites.
By Saturday night, I was so exhausted I was shaking and in too much pain to sleep well.  I feel some better today, but not as good as I did last week.  Challenges for this week:  more green beans to can; blackberries ripening; plums ripening; cookout/fireworks at my daughter's house on Friday night.  My daughter lives next to the Western Kentucky Fairgrounds.  From her backyard, we have the perfect view of the fireworks exhibition at the  fairgrounds for free!  But, that means I'm expected to bring broccoli salad, corn salad, and at least one sugar-free desert.  That means I have to go shopping and then do some MORE cooking.  Will my energy level hold??????  I've started taking B-12 and B-2, so I hope to get through this coming week without too much damage!
I hope all of my friends on DS have enough energy to celebrate a wonderful Independence Day!